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The elixir of life (Medieval Latin: elixir vitae), also known as elixir of immortality, is a potion that supposedly grants the drinker eternal life and/or eternal youth. This elixir was also said to cure all diseases. Alchemists in various ages and cultures sought the means of formulating the elixir.
In Chinese tradition, there are legends of miracle births, where a newborn is able to speak because the soul of the baby didn't drink the Five Flavored Tea of Forgetfulness. Occasionally people are able to avoid drinking the brew, resulting in past life memories surfacing in children.
Nepenthe / n ɪ ˈ p ɛ n θ i / (Ancient Greek: νηπενθές, nēpenthés) is a possibly fictional medicine for sorrow – a "drug of forgetfulness" mentioned in ancient Greek literature and Greek mythology, depicted as originating in Egypt. [1] The carnivorous plant genus Nepenthes is named after the drug nepenthe.
Also known as the Amelēs potamos (river of unmindfulness), the Lethe flowed around the cave of Hypnos and through the Underworld where all those who drank from it experienced complete forgetfulness. The river was often associated with Lethe , the personification of forgetfulness and oblivion, who was the daughter of Eris (Strife).
The Elixir of Life is a famous potion that aimed to create eternal youth. [32] During the Chinese dynasties , this elixir of life was often recreated and drunk by emperors, nobles and officials. [ citation needed ] In India, there is a myth of the potion amrita , a drink of immortality made out of nectar.
Elixir originated in medieval European alchemy meaning "A preparation by the use of which it was sought to change metals into gold" (elixir stone or philosopher's stone) or "A supposed drug or essence with the property of indefinitely prolonging life" (elixir of life). The word was figuratively extended to mean "A sovereign remedy for disease.
The writings of the Liexian Zhuan describes a man named Wei Boyang who had made such a pill of immortality. [6]Texts dating from the 4th century AD and later present the Yellow Emperor near the end of his reign as finding the pill in the Huang Shan mountain range, then establishing the seventy-two peaks of the mountains as the dwelling place for the immortals.
Chinese woodblock illustration of a waidan alchemical refining furnace, 1856 Waike tushuo 外科圖説 (Illustrated Manual of External Medicine). Waidan, translated as 'external alchemy' or 'external elixir', is the early branch of Chinese alchemy that focuses upon compounding elixirs of immortality by heating minerals, metals, and other natural substances in a luted crucible.